Bone Dice
by Neko-chan -Silvered Tongue
Summary: The Queen's Spider and Watchdog are sent off to investigate a new smuggling ring that seems to have its origins in Haiti. Of course, no one bothered to mention anything about the voodoo.


_Title:_ Bone Dice

_Author:_ Neko-chan

_Fandom:_ Kuroshitsuji/Kuroshitsuji II

_Rating:_ T

_Warnings:_ Haitian voodoo, zombies, and Alois' potty mouth

_Summary:_ The Queen's Spider and Watchdog are sent off to investigate a new smuggling ring that seems to have its origins in Haiti. Of course, no one bothered to mention anything about the voodoo.

_Author's Note:_ As usual with my dedications, this one is also for mhikaru because she is the peanut butter to my jelly~ :D Anyway, for this story: I figured that I should probably use some of what I learned in my Voodoo class (it's for Post-Colonial Studies and Literature, kthanx~ ;P) and apply it for the BlackButler(dot)net Thursday Crack Ficlets challenge for "Kuroshitsuji characters in graveyards." Definitely had a lot of fun with this one; what can I say? I love Alois and Ciel. And, finally: Needless to say, _Happy (early) Halloween_~ ;D

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**Bone Dice**

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Ciel stared out over the graveyard, the markers crooked and leaning haphazardly this way and that; mists formed from the cooling air meeting with the lingering heat and humidity of a Haitian day, twining idly over the ground with tendrils reaching greedily for those foolish enough to step into the realm where the ordinary and normal became sub-standard and the patterns of the world flipped upside down.

The Phantomhive heir continued to stare, and the main thought that came to his mind was that this truly couldn't be happening. The situation that he had ended up in felt more like the clichéd setting from Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_. Or perhaps one of the Romantic poems produced by Keats or Wordsworth, similar to some of the ones that Sebastian had forced Ciel to read during the sea voyage. The atmosphere in the poems and the atmosphere here in the graveyard both seemed to be portrayed in over-the-top ways, and Ciel couldn't help but wonder if it was done to deliberately annoy him further.

"You can't be serious," the Queen's Watchdog finally settled on saying, expression dubious enough to speak volumes about the excessive amount of doubts that he had. "The informant must have been wrong; there's no way that anyone will actually be living _here_."

A certain blonde irritant laughed at that, stepping past Ciel and making his way towards the entrance that was blocked by a gate comprised of rusty iron, just barely managing to cling to the old hinges. "Stop being such a fucking pansy, Ciel," Alois said over his shoulder as he kicked down the gate and leisurely stepped over it. "You visit that freak in the mortuary all of the damn time. This can't be _that_ different."

Ciel gritted his teeth in annoyance, his single bared eye flaring at Alois' words as a headache began to throb at his temples. He hadn't wanted the blonde to come with them on the voyage but, for some reason, Queen Victoria had believed that the assignment could only be handled by both the Watchdog _and_ the Spider—and so here he was, standing before a graveyard in Haiti at midnight, being insulted by a low-bred commoner who thought himself an Earl while their butlers remained behind at the port to look for more clues. It was more than enough for Ciel to wish that he had given in to his urge and drowned Alois while they were still on the ship.

Not willing to be outdone by the Trancy impersonator, Ciel finally began to make his way forward so that he once more became level with Alois. "It has nothing to do with being afraid," Ciel retorted, brows furrowed as _he_ now stepped away from Alois to make his way further into the graveyard. "It has everything to do with thinking that we were lied to and that this is nothing more than just a waste of time."

"Who the hell cares?" came the blasé reply and Ciel could have sworn that he saw Alois _twirling_ amongst the gravestones. "This is still a lot more fun than being stuck in that backwater excuse for a city with Sebastian and Claude, or even back home in England—Queen Stick-In-The-Mud would have made us attend that stupid Hallowmas ceremony that all of the other peacocks have been going on about for the past fucking month. I probably would have slept through the damn thing, anyway, and I wouldn't have been able to have Claude with me to keep me entertained. Fucking useless church ceremony."

Ciel commended himself in the restraint that he showed by not chucking a rock at Alois' head for the insult to Queen Victoria, though he did also have to admit that hiding a body in a graveyard was a particularly ingenious plan; who would have looked for a dead person amongst rows upon rows of other dead people?

"Trancy, shut up _now_ or leave," Ciel finally managed to settle on, pointedly keeping his gaze away from Alois as he began to head towards the part of the graveyard that bordered the jungle. He could hear Alois curse at him in answer, but Ciel was completely ignoring him by that point in time in favor of moving closer to the faint glow that he saw coming from the gaps in the foliage. "Look."

Alois came up beside Ciel, shifting just enough to use the shorter boy's shoulder as an armrest. Both contractors watched the light for several long moments before Alois finally glanced at the other from the corner of his gaze. "…think that the informant was telling the truth now?" he asked, ensuring that no trace of smugness entered into the tone of his voice—Ciel was irritated enough to just shoot him at this point.

The dark-haired boy scowled over at Alois—to which the blonde just smirked—before shrugging Alois' arm off of his shoulder so that he could take the step forward to move from graveyard to jungle and the path that he could see, faint though it was, that led to the flickering light.

A voice stopped him, however.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Sirrah should know that 'tis bad manners to enter into someone's home without bringing a gift to apologize for the intrusion."

A woman stepped out from the shadows beneath a tree, skin so dark that she looked like she was a living representative of the night; the whites of her eyes glowed in the soft light from the moon above the three of them, her teeth just as bright as she flashed a smile in bemusement at the way that Ciel's pistol had seemingly appeared out of nowhere in his hand, the gun pointed directly at the lady's forehead. The woman just laughed quietly in answer, moving away from the jungle and into the open ground of the graveyard.

A giant boa constrictor was wrapped comfortably about her body, the very tip of its tail wrapped around the woman's ankle in a parody of an anklet, and the snake's head was settled at the base of her throat—at the hollow of her collarbone, chin resting with tongue occasionally darting in and out over the swell of a breast.

Ciel stepped away from the woman, putting himself in front of Alois—though the other contractor just thanked him by snuggling up to him in his own parody of the snake around the woman. Irritated, Ciel elbowed the blonde boy, to which Alois only chuckled wickedly.

Seeing their antics, the woman just shook her head in bemusement, fingers caressing lightly over her snake's head. "You two are rather foolish, trespassing so carelessly over Baron Samedi's home," she scolded gently. "You should have brought rum or tobacco—for the Baron has always had a soft spot for cigars and he would have been much more likely to greet you warmly if you had bothered with good manners."

In answer to that, it was of course Alois who promptly then said, "Who the fuck are you?"

Sighing softly at his "partner's" incompetence, Ciel stepped back to stomp the heel of his shoe onto Alois' foot, giving the foul-mouthed contractor something else to think about than insulting this stranger—and knew that his tactic had worked when he heard the resulting yelp of pain. "We were told that a… mamaloi… lived here and could perhaps help us," Ciel said, voice losing his usual self-confidence as he stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

In turn, the woman just laughed aloud at that. "Mamaloi? Ah, child, you must have gotten your information from a white man," she said, shaking her head in bemused derision. As her amusement settled, however, she glanced back at Ciel and gave him a saucy wink, which caused the boy to flush pink. "You may call me Mambu Cecilie. And I can help you—if what you offer in payment is fair enough price."

She gestured to the both of them and headed back to the flickering light mostly hidden in the trees; Ciel and Alois followed cautiously after, Alois limping slightly and muttering obscenities at the dark-haired contractor with Ciel, as usual, ignoring him.

Cecilie pushed open the door to her small hut, and the warm glow of a fire lit the jungle around the three of them, leaves highlighted starkly before becoming shadowed once more as the woman ducked into her home—leaving the door open for the boys to follow after, if they so decided.

Ciel was still debating whether or not it truly was a good idea to follow the woman into her home—it could have been a trap and he was aware that he was in more danger with Sebastian not in the immediate vicinity—and it was Alois who made the decision for him. Rolling his eyes, the blonde moved past Ciel and ducked into the hut, as well.

"Suicidal idiot," Ciel scowled as he stepped into the small house.

"Suck me," Alois managed to retort back before both contractors became distracted by the room they now found themselves in. Two pairs of blue eyes widened in fascination, looking about at the exotic—to them—decorations. Bits of animals were scattered across the room, some of the parts fresh while others had been obviously dried for later use; jars—some clear while the others had tinted glass—littered the tables and the shelves upon the walls, giving off an air of mystery and making Alois' hands itch with the desire to shatter them all. Both foul-smelling and sweet-smelling plants and herbs were strewn across a table, and it looked as if Alois and Ciel had interrupted Cecilie in the middle of something.

As the boys took chairs opposite of the woman, three men came shuffling into the main room carrying small glasses with warm coffee, presenting one glass to each of the seated occupants while the men stared off at the wall with eyes blank and inanimate. There was no spark of self present in any of the men's gazes.

Catching Alois' curious glance, Cecilie smiled slyly. "My assistants," she explained, expression turning wicked in fox-like delight. "Though not true hunsi since they're actually zombies."

Alois' eyes shone with pleasure, and he looked up at one of the men with a rapturous expression. "Oh, oh~~ Can I _please_ have one, Mambu Cecilie?" he cooed happily, reaching out to pet one of the men's arms.

At the same time, Ciel jerked away from the man who was offering him coffee, mouth curled in distaste. "There's no such things as—as _zombies_," the Phantomhive heir snapped out in derision, glaring over at the woman for her lie.

"Ah?" Cecilie murmured in answer, legs crossing primly in a mockery of an aristo lady, propping up her chin in one hand as she sipped idly at her drink. "And I'm sure that this child knows so much about the world, eh? No such thing as zombies—though three such creations stand before you now—just as there is no such thing as vodun or the loa that speak many, many words to me." She gave another wicked smile, gaze shifting to settling on Ciel's right eye, still hidden beneath its cover. "No such thing as demons, either, despite the mark of the covenant that you carry in that eye of yours."

Ciel's single bared eye widened in shock at the woman's words, fingers clenching tight over his pistol, just as Alois returned his attention to Mambu Cecilie, eyes glinting with predatory interest. "How do you fucking know that?"

The priestess' smile just deepened as she gestured towards the outside of the hut. "That world out there? Distorts truths, skews the bone-deep knowledge that our ancestors handed down to us and that we keep entwined within our selves even as we cross over to Guinea. World lies because that's what the world is good at." Cecilie leaned forward then, gaze intent on the two boys as phantasms seemed to slide through her dark eyes. "These men here? They're as alive as you and me. They were men who told tales that they shouldn't have known, and so a bocor made them into zombies—stole their souls, their selves, to make them this way. World, though, thinks of them as the walking dead." A bemused snort at the last particular comment, the misconceptions spread through people speaking without truly ever _seeing_ what actually lay before them. "And the world out there? Says that demons don't exist. But you know that that's a lie."

She fell silent at that, just watching Alois and Ciel from beneath heavy-lidded eyes.

As the silence continued to stretch on and the tension layered within it tightened further, Ciel finally was the one to speak, breaking through the tension and cleaving it with sharp, pointed words: "What do you want?"

The woman smiled at that, glancing first at Ciel and then at Alois. "Let me see the symbols that tie your souls to your devils, this dark and impossible magic, and then I will help you in providing answers to your investigation."

Wary, Ciel tugged his eyepatch off, baring his right eye to Cecilie's gaze; his lashes lifted and he stared at her defiantly: one perfect sapphire blue eye and the would-be twin glowing eerily with a violet light, the symbol sparking warningly as the priestess trailed a finger lightly over the cheekbone just beneath the contracted eye.

As Alois eventually caved and bared his own contract symbol for Cecilie's perusal, the priestess grasped his chin between her midnight-dark fingers, coaxing his face upwards so that she might be able to take a closer look at the golden design.

"Ah, such hard fates you both have," Cecilie murmured when she deemed herself satisfied and released her hold on Alois. "But, perhaps, it will be you that have the last laugh in the end."

Ciel scowled in annoyance at the cryptic words, the expression darkening further as the Haitian woman placed a pair of dice—finger bones and carved with different designs—upon the table before scooping them up to place in a leather bag.

"Your answers; follow the results that they shall give to you, and the dice shall lead you to where the smuggling ring keeps itself hidden," she said as she handed the bag to Ciel, Alois ignoring the both of them for now as he looked over at one of Cecilie's zombies with a calculating, assessing gaze. Ciel's mouth parted so that he could argue that it _hadn't_ been an even trade, but before he could even say a word, the hut winked out of existence—and without the support of the chairs that they had been previously sitting on, Alois and Ciel tumbled to the forest floor.

The contractors began to pick themselves up from the ground, brushing dirt off of their clothing and studiously trying to avoid each other's eyes. When there was nothing left except to state the obvious, Ciel began cautiously, "…did this just…"

Alois nodded firmly. "Fucking positive."

Ciel sighed and glanced down at the bag in his hand, frowning at the knowledge that it contained dice—and not only dice, but dice made from _finger bones_. He had no idea just how this was supposed to contribute to their investigation, and thus decided that he'd just hand it over to Sebastian and let him deal with the stupid dice.

Knowing that their time in the graveyard was effectively finished, Alois and Ciel turned and began to trek back to the entrance that they had originally entered through. This time around, they were much more careful in avoiding stepping on the different plots—though neither would openly admit that that was what they were doing—and reached the entrance without further incident.

Until Alois opened his mouth:

"That was fucking _brilliant_. I'm definitely going to join you on more jobs from the Queen if they're all like this. And… Hey, Ciel~ If I asked Claude, do you think that he'll get me a zombie to take back with me when we finally leave Haiti? If I asked really, _really_ nicely?"

**End.**


End file.
